Dear Members and Contacts of the Birkbeck Graduate Research
School,
We are delighted to share with you a call for papers for our
interdisciplinary AHRC Midlands4Cities-funded virtual seminar series, ‘Culture,
Things, and Empire’. We will be hosting 5 online Zoom seminars (20-minute
papers and 40 minutes of discussion) and 1 masterclass for all registered
participants surrounding issues and themes such as race, gender, class, and
materiality in the fields of imperial, colonial and global studies. The series
will take place between November 2020 and April 2021. Registration to attend
the seminars will also open soon here: https://culturethingsempire.wordpress.com/
Creative writers teach in schools, universities and the community, on retreats, in theatres and in workshops. Teaching is often a key part of a writer’s career, and there are rich possibilities creative arts education across a huge range of contexts. But how do you teach creative writing? Can you? This series offers anyone considering teaching creative writing as part of their career development the opportunity to look in detail at the theory and practice of creative writing pedagogy in a variety of institutional and community settings.
The series will address the historical principles and contemporary critiques of creative writing pedagogy, and how these are responding to wider institutional and societal developments. It will consider in detail the theory and practice of employing these pedagogical skills both within and outside higher education. Attendees will be invited to reflect on future possibilities and challenges for the development of creative writing teaching, enabling a deeper awareness and knowledge of creative writing as a subject of study, a future career, and a creative practice.
Students are not expected to attend all the sessions, but the series has been designed to allow for an arc of learning from theoretical principles to practical engagement.
The sessions will take place online via Microsoft Teams, once a month for the 2020/21 academic year.
You can sign up for individual sessions using the links below:
Legendary American journalist Bob Woodward
has a new book out, another deep dive into the inner workings of the White
House, including extensive interviews with President Donald J. Trump in which
he admits, on
tape, to having deliberately downplayed
the severity of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. These interviews were
conducted between December 2019 and July 2020, but the revelation that Trump was
aware how deadly the virus is and deliberately sought to conceal this
information from the American public wasn’t published until recently, when CNN
obtained a copy of the book ahead of its 15 September release.
The revelations immediately led to
recriminations against Trump from all sides – politicians, journalists, members
of the public on social media – and, more surprisingly perhaps, against
Woodward. Fox News, for example, questioned
his decision to hold onto this information for so long if it was so important. So
why did Woodward choose to withhold those interviews until now? And was the
decision to do so inherently unethical? Some suggested that Woodward was
motivated solely by profit and the desire to sell more books on the strength of
the revelations, and others even alleged
that he has “blood on his hands”. In response, Woodward argued
that he could not verify the information at the time and wanted to investigate
further, and that Trump’s attitude to the virus was already public knowledge
and was not, therefore, immediately newsworthy on its own. Erik Wemple, the
Washington Post’s media critic, argued
that Woodward was following standard practice for writing a book and that his
sources would have had an “implicit understanding” that they would be
interviewed multiple times until he could “stitch together something
authoritative, in book form”. If he were to have published “daily dispatches”,
then it is unlikely that he would have kept getting those rare on-the-record
interviews with Trump. In Wemple’s eyes, the decision was not whether to
publish in March or September, it was whether to publish in September or not at
all.
When analyzing decisions regarding news
selection, we often talk about news values, a theory developed by two Norwegian
researchers in the 1960s, which describes a set of criteria that form a
definition of newsworthiness. The more of these criteria are satisfied by an
event, the more likely it is to be reported on by the press. The results of
that Norwegian study have been reviewed and updated over the intervening years,
particularly in the context of the rise of digital media but rarely challenged
outright. And despite satisfying several key news values – surprise,
negativity, conflict, etc – the revelations in Woodward’s book went unreported
for seven months.
My research asks whether – especially given
that our current conception of news values did not predict and does not fully explain
the actions of a veteran news reporter – we can continue to use a
one-size-fits-all taxonomy, rethinking the concept of news values as one that
can be generalized across different formats in multiple markets, using American
broadcast news as an initial case study.
Reference
Galtung, J & Ruge, M.H., 1965. The
Structure of Foreign News: The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus
Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers. Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 2,
No. 1. Pp. 64-91.
Scourges
of gardeners, foes of council workers armed with tanks of glyphosate, trampled,
neglected, ignored: weeds are despised, yet they flourish, succeeding where
other plants fail. Tracing its etymology from Old through Middle to Modern
English, the OED defines a weed as ‘Any herbaceous plant not valued for its
usefulness or beauty, or regarded as a nuisance in the place where it is
growing.’ Gardeners generally consider plants that grow where they are unwanted
to be weeds, however much they are appreciated by the insect community.
Material Witness normally focuses on material things made by people, and how we interpret them by practical, theoretical, and historical means. This session switches emphasis, beginning with nature: the ecology of the pavement cracks, the roadside verge, the railway tracks. How have artists recognised the usefulness and beauty of weeds? How can we make the most of their vigour, tenacity, and ubiquity during this unprecedented lockdown?
This
two hour webinar will begin by exploring the deep art history of weeds through
medieval herbals, the plant-filled borders of books of hours, and Dürer’s
extraordinary ‘Great Piece of Turf’, and some interconnections with
contemporary artists’ practice. Our focus will then turn to drawing weeds,
using a variety of strategies and with a view to creating expressive
observational drawings.
This
workshop will focus on using materials that you have ready to hand. You can use
any paper, and any mark-making implements that you have to hand.
The following events and opportunities are available via the AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. All of the opportunities below are open to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded or self-funded.
Future Pathways in Medieval and Early Modern Studies:
Academia and Beyond
Friday, 6 March and Friday 27 March
The aim of these two workshops is to explore the possible
pathways that medieval and early modern studies can open up for future careers.
Both workshops will host a group of speakers with PhDs in various aspects of
medieval and early modern studies that have since pursued a wide array of
careers. Their personal knowledge and experiences will provide the springboard
for informal roundtable discussions and exercises. These events will encourage
current postgraduate students to reflect critically on the ways in which one
can communicate and curate research and teaching expertise, while they will
also offer opportunities for new connections to be made with a variety of
individuals, institutions and sectors.
FRAMES – Friday 20 March The annual TRANSITIONS symposium has been extended with FRAMES,
a day of workshops for CHASE researchers. The workshops are Graphic Medicine
with Ian Williams and Comics as Research Practice with Nick Sousanis.
The workshops are focussed on comics and arts as part of the
research process, but are open to all research students affiliated with CHASE
institutions.
The day is divided into two workshop sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning session is Graphic Medicine with Ian Williams. The afternoon session is Comics as Research Practice with Nick Sousanis.
Transitions: New Directions in Comics
Studies is an annual one-day symposium promoting new research and
multi-disciplinary academic study of comics / comix / bande dessinée /
manga / and other forms of sequential art. The Transitions symposia have been a
fixture on the UK comics scholarship landscape, with a focus on new voices and
novel approaches in comics research. The programme emphasises a range of
approaches in research, and especially invites participation from research
students and early career researchers.
Critical Race Studies and the Premodern: Archive and Seminar
8 & 9 June | University
of Sussex
Decolonising the Curriculum (Practical Funded by the CHASE
Consortium, the Universities of East Anglia and Sussex are hosting two
postgraduate training workshops on critical race studies and the pre-modern.
This, the second of two events, will be held at The University of Sussex, 8-9
June 2020, and will focus on research. The event is designed to develop
students’ professional skills. We invite expressions of interest from all postgraduates
working in the Humanities (giving papers, designing and chairing sessions,
attending).
Auraldiversities is a series of lectures, workshops and in-situ training sessions seeking to encourage creative and critical attention towards aural diversity within the arts and humanities, with particular focus on an ecology of the ear, designed for all those researching within the Arts and Humanities, especially those with an interest in the creative, social and political dimensions of sound and listening.
These sessions specifically address the need for further
study and practice inspired by, and concerning, this specific turn in research
and focus on a particular theme led by an academic/practitioner with invited
guests selected to represent a range of approaches. A CHASE PhD candidate with
associated research interests will also give a presentation.
Sessions are purposefully multifaceted, practical, intuitive
and experimental in approach and encourage collaborative work and collective
activities:
Ethnography and Film. Exploring Labour, Technology and Mediation in the Egyptian Film Industry
Wednesday 19 February | University of Kent
The workshop will offer participants advanced training in
ethnography, applied to the context of the Egyptian Film industry. Dr El
Khachab’s workshop will outline how researchers can successfully apply
ethnographic methodologies, developed in Anthropology, to research issues about
arts and media, especially film. Dr El Khachab will outline the strategies he
developed during his PhD research to gather observations, interviews and
documentary data from creatives and technicians working in the largest and most
influential media industry in the Arab world. He will also provide participants
an insight into how he adapted the presentation of his findings from his PhD
thesis into his forthcoming monograph, The Egyptian Film Industry: Labor,
Technology, Mediation.
This workshop is aimed at CHASE students from a variety of
backgrounds and developed with an interdisciplinary audience in mind. Hence,
attending the training does not require any specialised prior knowledge or
skills, apart from an interest in the topic of the workshop.
Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with over sixty books to his name. His work has won him the International Dublin Literary Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award, and been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, among others. He is a past chair of the Society of Authors, and on the board of a number of organisations that work with literature and free speech.
Future Pathways in Medieval and Early Modern Studies: Academia and Beyond
Friday 6 & Friday 27 March | University of Kent
The intended audience for both workshops is first and
foremost students currently undertaking PhDs in any aspect of medieval or early
modern studies (including Archaeology, History, History of Art and Literary
Studies). Students will be able to register for one or both of the workshops,
both of which will be hosted at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus. The
first workshop (‘Beyond Academia’) will take place on Friday 6 March 2020. The
second workshop (‘Early Career Academia’) will take place on Friday 27 March
2020.
Embodied Approaches to Performing Experimental Music
This training explores embodied approaches to performing experimental music, and methods of observing and reporting on research observations that arise as a result of such performance. It employs an approach to methodological training through practical, hands-on workshops.
The Essay Film Festival, now in its sixth edition, presents a global range of contemporary and restored essayistic works, each exploring the creative zone of possibilities between experimental and documentary modes of filmmaking.
This year’s programme features
several key themes and strands:
New work by the Otolith Group and restored essay films by Ruchir Joshi and the Yugantar Collective engage with the cultural history and politics of India, providing imaginative and insightful perspectives on the educational projects of Rabindranath Tagore, the wandering Baal musicians, the changing cities of Ahmedabad and Kolkata, and the political struggles of Indian women. A symposium on the work of author and filmmaker Joshi will take place during the festival with guests from India, France and the USA, while Yugantar member Deepa Dhanraj will join researchers from Berlin Arsenal and Goldsmiths to discuss the restoration of the collective’s films.
From Argentina, France, UK and the Philippines come challenging found footage experiments by Leandro Listorti, Frank Beauvais, Sarah Wood and John Torres, which critically examine the status and uses of images today while transforming them into moving and fascinating new creations. A student-led research workshop with guest filmmakers will analyse the theory and practice of found footage in the digital age.
US artists Garrett Bradley and
Cauleen Smith investigate and celebrate the depth and diversity of
African-American lives, past and present, with works that, like all good
essays, both question the viewer and invite us into an ongoing conversation.
Both Bradley and Smith will give lecture-workshops about their practice
alongside the screenings of their films.
Developing the theme of ‘the
living archive’, a series of events will address the cultural politics of film
restoration, featuring works by Jocelyne Saab, Mostafa Derkaoui, Ingemo
Engström and Gerhard Theuring, in addition to the restored films of Ruchir
Joshi and the Yugantar Collective.
Finally, Israeli filmmaker Tamar Rachovsky will join the festival to present and discuss Home in E Major, which looks at complex questions of identity and belonging through the deceptively simple lens of the diary film.
Simple and complex, contingent and
reflective, hybrid and critical, the essay film that we celebrate at our
festival is a constantly renewed invitation to engage with the world and to see
it in new ways.
Michael Temple (Director), on behalf of the Essay Film Festival group: Matthew Barrington (Manager), Kieron Corless, Nicolas Freeman (CHASE intern), Catherine Grant, Ricardo Matos Cabo, Janet McCabe, Raquel Morais, and Laura Mulvey.
The Essay Film Festival is a collaboration between Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image and the ICA, with support from the CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership.
The Public Engagement Team provides advice, opportunities, and funding for engagement with research. The team was established to support Birkbeck’s commitment to making research results available to society. By working together with researchers, external partners, and organisations, we aim to create opportunities for knowledge exchange.
We would like to let researchers know that applications for our annual Public Engagement Awards are now open. This award recognises the inspiring public engagement work undertaken by Birkbeck researchers at various levels of their career, including doctoral researchers.
The deadline for applications is midnighton Sunday 23rd February 2020. The Awards Ceremony will be held in April 2020.
We welcome applications in the following six categories:
PhD/Early Career researcher
Communicating Research
Collaboration
Community Engagement
Engaged Practice
Transforming Culture or Public Life
Winners will be awarded £250 towards their research.
Please refer to the Public Engagement team website for more information on the awards and Public Engagement with research at Birkbeck.
Applications and guidelines for the 2020 awards are available below, but please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Public Engagement team if you have any questions.
The team will be attending a research networking event hosted by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research on Thursday 6th February, 12-2pm (G04, 43 Gordon Square) if you’d like to speak to them in person. You can contact bisr@bbk.ac.uk for more details or to reserve a seat.
The following events and opportunities are available via the AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. All of the opportunities below are open to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded or self-funded. If I could also draw your attention to a couple of calls for papers/participation that are currently open.
Journal recruiting members for next Editorial Board
Brief Encounters is currently recruiting the next Editorial Board to oversee the creation of issue 5 – see below press release:
Seaside, Ruin and De-Industrialisation on the Cleveland Coast
Friday 10th to sunday 12th of January
Redcar/Cleveland
Following the critical excursion Beyond the Heartlands and building on themes of de-industrialisation, landscape and ruin, the ‘Space Place Time’ research collective are calling for participants for a two-day critical excursion to Redcar and Cleveland. Completed in 1846, the Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway hoped to attract tourism, but like much of the region, Redcar’s expansion came with the 1850 discovery of iron ore in the Eston area of the Cleveland Hills. The engine of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, Redcar was simultaneously home to a Victorian pleasure pier. The pier’s demolition in 1981 can be seen as an allegory of the decade’s slum, which saw the simultaneous decline of both industries.
The Frankfurt Exotic: broken objects and porous walls in Naples
Beginning of April (deadline to apply 15 Jan)
Naples, Italy
Following the critical excursion Re-mapping the Arcades
Project in Glasgow, and building on the field engagement with the work and
cities of Walter Benjamin, we are calling for participants in a critical
excursion in Naples: The Frankfurt Exotic: broken objects and porous walls in
Naples. This critical excursion will take place over 4 nights at the beginning
of April 2020 and will involve a series of workshops, walking tours and
screenings with the anticipated outcome of a publication recording
conversations, presentations, works in progress, creative responses and
translation work.
Friday 17th of January (from 12:00) – Norfolk Heritage Centre
Saturday 18th January – Blickling Estate
The second of the CHASE DTP-funded Bookscapes workshops, offering PhD students advanced training in palaeographical, codicological and bibliographical skills, will take place on 17th-18th January 2020, hosted by the University of East Anglia and led by Tom Roebuck and Sophie Butler. At the Norfolk Heritage Centre, on day one of the workshop, attending students will have the opportunity to engage with the collections of the original Norwich City Library (founded in 1618). The workshop will move to Blickling Estate on the second day, where the students will focus on the techniques and history of bookbinding and the history of the book. The second day’s workshop will be led by Nicholas Pickwoad, one of the leading experts on bookbinding and an adviser to the National Trust on book conservation.
Numbers for the workshops are strictly limited. We encourage all interested PhD students to contact bookscapes@kent.ac.uk as soon as possible. You can also follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bookscapes.
—
CHASE Essentials – Thesis Boot Camp
Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of February
University of Sussex
Are you a mid- or late-stage doctoral researcher, struggling
to make progress with your thesis? Do you keep putting off your writing? If so,
Thesis Boot Camp could be the solution. Deadline to apply – 17 January.
Aural Diversity is a series of lectures, workshops and in-situ training sessions seeking to encourage creative and critical attention towards aural diversity within the arts and humanities, with particular focus on an ecology of the ear, designed for all those researching within the Arts and Humanities, especially those with an interest in the creative, social and political dimensions of sound and listening.
These sessions specifically address the need for further study and practice inspired by, and concerning, this specific turn in research and focus on a particular theme led by an academic/practitioner with invited guests selected to represent a range of approaches.
Session #1 | Thursday 13 February | 1000-1800 | Goldsmiths,
University of London – Register
here
Session # 2 | Thursday 27 February | 1000-1800 | Room 264,
Senate House, London – Register
here
Session #3 | Thursday 12 March | 1000-1800 | Goldsmiths,
University of London – Register
here
Plenary | Thursday 26 March | 1500-1800 | Keynes Library,
Birkbeck, University of London – Register
here
—
Ethnography and Film. Exploring Labour, Technology and Mediation in the Egyptian Film Industry
19 Feb (14:00-20:30)
University of Kent
The workshop will offer participants advanced training in
ethnography, applied to the context of the Egyptian Film industry. Dr El
Khachab’s workshop will outline how researchers can successfully apply
ethnographic methodologies, developed in Anthropology, to research issues about
arts and media, especially film. Dr El Khachab will outline the strategies he
developed during his PhD research to gather observations, interviews and
documentary data from creatives and technicians working in the largest and most
influential media industry in the Arab world. He will also provide participants
an insight into how he adapted the presentation of his findings from his PhD
thesis into his forthcoming monograph, The Egyptian Film Industry: Labor,
Technology, Mediation.
Call for proposals | The Essay Film Festival: Research, Critique, Practice
As part of its new
collaborative partnership with CHASE, the Essay Film Festival is inviting
proposals from doctoral students for a student-led symposium exploring
essayistic forms and their relationship to academic research, social critique
and artistic practice.
The conference will combine
research presentations and film screenings, including examples of practice-led
researchers talking through, questioning and “essaying” their own work. This
event will follow the sixth edition of the Essay Film Festival, which will take
place at Birkbeck Cinema, ICA, Goethe-Institut and Institut Français, from 26
March to 4 April 2020.
The symposium will be held at Birkbeck Cinema in May 2020
(exact date to be confirmed), more than a month after the end of the festival.
The idea of the conference is, therefore, to provide a space for critical
reflection and debate, with a certain detachment from the EFF programme itself,
as well as to propose and discuss new directions for the festival in the
future.
Call for Papers | Critical Race Studies and the Premodern: Archive and Seminar
23rd to 24th March – University of East Anglia 8th to 9th June – University of Sussex
Universities of East Anglia and Sussex are hosting two postgraduate
training workshops on critical race studies and the pre-modern. The first of
these will be held at the University of East Anglia, 23-24 March 2020, and will
focus on teaching and pedagogy; the second will be held at The University of
Sussex, 8-9 June 2020, and will focus on research. Both events are designed to
develop students’ professional skills. We invite expressions of interest from
all postgraduates working in the Humanities (giving papers, designing and
chairing sessions, attending).
